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Thousands of Iraqi women are being held illegally in government jails where they are subjected to torture, ill-treatment and sexual assault, according to a human rights report.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that many women had been detained for months or years without charge before seeing a judge and questioned about crimes allegedly committed by their male relatives rather than themselves.

Women described being kicked, slapped, hung upside-down and beaten on the soles of their feet, given electric shocks, threatened with sexual assault by security forces during interrogation, and even raped in front of their relatives and children.